SCR's 'Reunion' brings back old times with explosive results

March 16, 2014

Updated 9:08 a.m.

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From left, Tim Cummings (Mitch) and Michael Gladis (Max) in a scene from "Reunion." Gregory S. Moss' play is receiving its world premiere on South Coast Repertory's Julianne Argyros Stage. BEN HORAK, SCR

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Cummings (Mitch) and Michael Gladis (Max) and Kevin Berntson (Peter) in "Reunion" at SCR. The play concerns a 25th-anniversary high school reunion involving three former friends. BEN HORAK, SCR

From left, Tim Cummings (Mitch) and Michael Gladis (Max) in a scene from "Reunion." Gregory S. Moss' play is receiving its world premiere on South Coast Repertory's Julianne Argyros Stage.BEN HORAK, SCR

Anyone who’s ever been to a high school reunion knows the strange mix of awkwardness, pleasure, pain and schadenfreude it brings. It’s like seeing your youth in a fun house mirror: people are recognizable, if distorted, and the effect is a little scary and disorienting.

That’s the rich territory explored by playwright Gregory S. Moss in his dark comedy, “Reunion,” which is making its world premiere at South Coast Repertory after a well-received reading there during last year’s Pacific Playwrights Festival.

Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt with a keen awareness of the subtle ballet that dictates male power relationships and performed by three actors who thoroughly embody their roles, “Reunion” is an exhilarating tear down a treacherous memory lane filled with lies, one-upmanship and old wounds that never healed. At the end, as the gray dawn breaks on a scene of testosterone-soaked destruction, I felt much like I did after seeing David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” and Sam Shepard’s “True West”: I’m glad I wasn’t part of that train wreck, but it sure was amazing to watch.

The story unfolds in a suburban Boston motel room badly in need of a redo, a sad and dispiriting setting perfectly captured by scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer. It’s the same place where three high school buddies, Peter, Max and Mitch, held a post-grad bacchanal 25 years before. Early in the first scene, Peter and Max talk about the reunion party they’ve just attended as they wait for Mitch to arrive.

“She just got so big!” Peter says of a woman that Max remembers as a cutie in high school.

“She’s middle-aged, Petie,” Max replies.

“I know, I know, Peter responds. “But I mean I look at you, I look at Mitchie…”

Peter doesn’t see what we do: two men showing some mileage. Peter, we learn, strives to hold onto his youth, working out and having as much fun at the water park as his kids. Max, on the other hand, seems worn down by a terrible burden.

Peter’s denial hints at the play’s central theme: adults have a bottomless capacity to deny present truths and reshape the past, forgetting some things and embroidering others to create a self-aggrandizing personal fable that bears no resemblance to reality.

When Mitch shows up, the partying starts. He’s the alpha dog of the trio, and he wields his dominance like a switchblade. He’s bullying, cajoling, threatening and always gets his way.

The play’s second half is wilder and more rewarding. As the booze and drugs take their toll, old secrets and grudges surface. Peter, too eager to please, is resentful of Max and Mitch’s close bond and his own nerdy outsider status; big vulnerabilities hide under the massive chip on Mitch’s shoulder; Max, a former party animal who gets drunk for the first time in years, reveals the reason for his grim sobriety.

These revelations would be sufficient to sustain a normal raucous comedy about male egos clashing in the night, but Moss burrows deeper and takes considerable risks. Fortunately the payoff is worth it, though some might see the story’s ultimate secret coming. The conclusion leaves us with many unanswered questions, which isn’t a bad thing because they’re the right questions. We’re eager to fill in the tantalizing blanks, not scratching our heads over lapses of narrative and logic.

Moss has created a feast for three game actors, and it’s hard to imagine a better cast than this one.

As Peter, Kevin Berntson understands the body language and speech intonations of submission. He makes Peter so enamored with his unworthy friends that you’ll feel a jolt of surprised pleasure when he finally stands up for himself.

The play’s central relationship is between Max and Mitch. As embodied by Michael Gladis and Tim Cummings, it’s multilayered and ever-changing.

At first, Mitch’s raw bravura establishes him as the group’s undeniable commander, but Cummings lets us glimpse fragility beneath the chest thumping, even at the beginning. As Max notes, Mitch is overcompensating for something.

Gladis, a familiar face from his 2007-12 stint on “Mad Men,” plays the most complex and ambiguous character. At first it’s hard to see through Max’s stolid gravitas, but we sense it’s covering something traumatic. Little by little, Gladis’ performance admits us further inside Max, but not to his core. At the end, you’ll be unsure what to make of him – a feeling that is shared by Mitch – and that might leave you frustrated, but it’s true to Max’s character. Gladis shows us a man who, at 42, is a stranger to himself. It’s a brilliant portrayal of a tortured soul.

Moss’ plays range far and wide in their style and subjects, but I hope he returns to this fertile milieu. He paints it with masterful confidence. These men and their tight but troubled bonds are worth exploring again.

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